We’re currently processing additional materials donated by the family of Lewis Zandenberg. Lewis was a former president of the Stirling-Rawdon Historical Society and Chair of the Stirling Public Library Board, and a keen genealogist and local historian. Among the items he collected are a pair of photographs from 1907, taken to mark the 50th wedding anniversary of a couple from Stirling, Ontario.

2016-34/1/26/1 Golden Wedding group photo

The married couple are identified on the back of the photographs as Abigail Ann (1839-1927) and Stephen Badgley (1835-1914). Abigail’s maiden name was Barager and she married Stephen on October 27th, 1857.

2016-34/1/26/2 Abby Ann and Stephen Badgley

The building in both of these photographs is the Methodist Church in Stirling, now St. Paul’s United Church. The younger couple in the front of the car are probably the Badgleys’ son, William Ward Badgley (1868-1929) and his wife Sarah (born Stiles, 1866-1958).

A closer look at both photographs reveals an interesting character: there is a man pictured in them who doesn’t seem to entirely belong. He is lurking just outside the group in the first photograph, hands in pockets, in contrast to the more formal poses taken by the rest of the people in the image:

2016-34/1/26/1 (detail)

and here is what seems to be the same man, skulking at the corner of the church in the second photograph:

2016-34/1/26/2 (detail)

We are left wondering if he was part of the party, or if he was deliberately inserting himself into the photographs to spoil them.

Sometimes materials find their way to the archives, but don’t really belong there. One important role of the network of archivists around the world is to communicate with each other about such items and try to establish where the ‘right place’ is for something.

This week, we received a medical diploma which was issued in Syracuse, New York, in 1910. It had been picked up at a yard sale in Syracuse by a Belleville doctor, J. Russell Scott, for the princely sum of one dollar. Russell Scott was active in local causes and local politics: here he is on August 18th, 1971, presiding over the official opening of the Quinte Mall as Mayor of Belleville. He was Mayor from 1968 to 1972.

CABHC: HCM00260 Mayor J. Russell Scott at the opening of the Quinte Mall

Scott placed the diploma in the archives of the Belleville General Hospital, but its original owner, Clyde Orrin Barney, had no connection with the hospital and so it was passed on to us. Our collecting policy is focused on people and places of Belleville and Hastings County, so this was not really something that we would be able to offer a home.

Along with the diploma was a typed obituary for Barney, who lived from 1882 to 1966. The obituary was from the Syracuse Herald-Journal and it explains that Barney was on the staff of the medical school at Syracuse University for much of his life.

In 1950 Syracuse University sold its medical school to SUNY Upstate Medical Center. The archivist of Syracuse University put us in touch with this institution (now called SUNY Upstate Medical University), and staff there were happy to offer a home to Dr. Clyde O. Barney’s diploma. After some careful wrapping and a trip to the Post Office, the diploma is now on its way to its rightful home: a satisfying result of archival cooperation.

In 1908 a Belleville-based band embarked on a bold tour of the Earth, performing more than 1,000 concerts, covering 70,000 miles (112,600km) and spending some $60,000 on transportation. The band was the Kilties, popular performers of mainly Scottish music in the early twentieth century and the first Canadian group to create a record (you can listen to some of their recordings at the Virtual Gramophone site). The Kilties musicians and choir were accompanied on their tour by the Clan Johnstone dance troupe.

The group started their round-the-world tour in Belleville, where their manager, Thomas P. J. Power lived (he was the proprietor of the New Queen’s Hotel on Front Street, opposite City Hall). After performing more than 50 shows across Canada, the troupe took to the high seas on the S.S. Maramar in Victoria, B.C. and headed West across the Pacific Ocean. Their trip took them to Hawaii, Fiji, Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, India, Myanmar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Italy, France, Gibraltar, Scotland, and England (the full timetable is available in the Kilties’ promotional brochure).

One of the group compiled an album of photographs taken on the journey. Despite their punishing concert schedule, the Kilties found plenty of time to play the part of tourists and the album faithfully records many of the places they visited, including the Taj Mahal in India:

and the Sphinx in Egypt:

Alongside such standard tourist shots, are images that cannot be captured today, including the former Post Office in Yangon, Myanmar (then known as Rangoon, Burma), which was badly damaged by an earthquake on May 5th, 1930:

Or this image of the Victoria Clock Tower in Christchurch, New Zealand, with horses, carts, and an electric streetcar passing by:

This map from Flickr gives an idea of the number and location of the photographs taken:

Organizing a round-the-world tour in 1908 was quite an undertaking, and Thomas Power seems to have been a genius at promoting the Kilties. The band members always wore their kilts, even when they weren’t performing, and the photographs show huge Kilties posters displayed at the towns where their shows were hosted. This sign was put up in Masterton, New Zealand:

Local newspapers were flooded with advertisements to ensure an audience. Here’s the Sydney Morning Herald from August 15th, 1908:

The photograph album was presented to Lena Power (Thomas’s wife) at Christmas 1910 by a man only identified as ‘Heine’. It was donated to the Community Archives one hundred years later by John D. Ryan. All the photographs have now been digitized and made available online, allowing everyone to explore the globe as the Kilties experienced it in 1908-1910.

Archivists are guided by collecting policies, also called acquisition policies, when it comes to deciding what to add to our collections. These might be determined by the geographical area that an archives covers, or perhaps by subject matter. In the case of the Community Archives of Belleville and Hastings County, our general remit is a geographical one: we collect materials which reflect the activities of people in our area. If materials are brought to us that would be more appropriately kept by another archival institution we normally advise the owner to take it there, or send it there ourselves.

But there are always exceptions to rules and when this old volume arrived at the archives a few weeks ago, it became clear that this was going to be one of those cases.

The volume is ‘Circular Book 2’ and it was originally created by the Toronto Police Service, between 1929 and 1931 (and is therefore clearly outside of our collecting area!). However, the owner did not want to donate the book to an archives; they were just looking for some advice.

The book has seen better days: the spine is in a sorry state and the pages are very brittle, acidic and crumbling. We were concerned that the volume would only deteriorate further and suggested to the owner that we photograph the pages, so that the information could be saved and made available to researchers before the condition of the book got any worse. They agreed and were happy for us to share the images online.

Pasted on to 273 pages of this book are wanted posters (or circulars) from police departments and private detective agencies across North America. Sometimes the pages were annotated with information on the date and location of the arrest of the suspect. The photographs of these pages have now been added to our collection as digital files (2017-70) and are all available on Flickr.

There are many posters about men who escaped from prison, including Frank Grigware, who escaped from the United States Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas in 1910 (on a hijacked locomotive) and ultimately settled down in Alberta under the name James Fahey.

The faces staring up from these posters are overwhelmingly male: there are only two female criminals out of around 500 identified in the book. One of these was Dorothy Cherris, who was wanted in Houston, Texas for involvement in gang murders.

Dorothy and her husband, John were members of a gang of bank robbers. John was shot in the head by fellow gangsters on August 30th, 1931 and his body was dumped in the Brazos river near East Columbia, Texas. Two weeks later, Dorothy was killed in a car accident near Bonne Terre, Missouri.

Cross-references from inside the volume suggest that there were at least three other ‘Circular books’ maintained by the Toronto police service. This one somehow ended up in Belleville and was rescued by its current owner during someone else’s house move. We don’t know if any of the other volumes survive, but at least the contents of this one are now available for research. Its pages give us an interesting glimpse into police procedure and criminal activity across North America between 1929 and 1931.

The fire insurance maps produced in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are a valuable resource for researching the history of settlements and buildings. They show all the structures in a locality and are colour-coded and annotated to show the materials that each building was made of.

As an example, here is a detail from page 2 of the 1878 map, showing St. Michael’s church.

The blue colour tells us that this building was made of stone, while the X in the bottom right corner indicates that it had a shingle roof.

The next map shows a big change in the footprint of the church and notes that it was “Under Construction” in May 1888. The replacement church was taller than the earlier one, by some ten feet. Instead of shingles, the O indicates that the roof was now made of slate.

Between one publication and another, the maps were updated with patches to show changes to buildings. You can see the corner of one such patch in the image above, while the map page below carries more than forty patches, representing alterations to buildings in residential Deseronto streets between 1893 and 1911.

In the Community Archives there are six of these maps for Belleville, ranging in date from 1878 to 1957, and one for Deseronto.* They are one of our most heavily used resources and years of use have resulted in wear and tear to the maps. By photographing the maps, we can share them online and protect the originals from further damage. You can now explore Belleville as it would have been in 1878, 1888, 1904, 1915 and 1942 and Deseronto between 1893 and 1911.

*Note that the Lennox and Addington County Museum and Archives in Napanee also holds a Deseronto fire insurance plan (from 1922).

Sometimes the surviving records of an organization give us tantalizing glimpses of the materials that were not so carefully preserved. A recent addition to the Community Archives is one such example.

Added to our collections as Accession 2017-07 last week were a collection of By-Laws from Hastings County. Most of these were the official final by-laws, which carried the dates they were read at Hastings County Council meetings, as well as the seal of the County and the signatures of the Warden and the Clerk.

Here’s an example from 1912, of By-Law Number 715. The back has the dates the by-law was read (in later years by-laws tended to be read three times on the same day, but in 1912 they were read on consecutive days):

The front has the date on which the by-law was passed, together with the seal and the signatures of the Clerk (Arthur M. Chapman in this example) and the Warden (Denis Hanley). For some of the earliest by-laws, only drafts survive, and this is the case for the earliest one in this accession: By-Law Number 5 of the County of Hastings, which was passed in 1850. This was passed with the aim of putting offenders to work, and it entered the record books as a by-law “To provide for the opening of a House of Correction.” Incidentally, the draft shows that there was some indecision about the name of the institution: in the drafting process it was changed to House of Industry and then back to House of Correction.

The text of the by-law was as follows:

By Law to provide for the opening of a House of Correction

Whereas it is expedient and proper to provide for the Correction of persons committed to Gaol for minor offences; and whereas this cannot be accomplished by permitting offenders to spend their time in idleness during the period of their confinement.

1 Be it therefore enacted by the Municipal Council of the County of Hastings, and it is hereby enacted by the same. That a part of the present Gaol of this County shall be set apart and used as a House of Correction for all person convicted for any offences either against the Statute Law or against the By Law or By Laws of any Municipality within this County, and who shall be put to Labour, according to the Provisions of this By-Law hereinafter provided.

2 That any mechanic who shall be convicted and sentenced shall during the period of his confinement, work at this own proper trade the County furnishing materials, and the produce of the labour shall be disposed of for the benefit of the County and the funds paid into the hands of the County Treasurer.

3 That any person not a mechanic who shall be convicted and sentenced shall during the period of his or her confinement be set at such work as the Guardian of the House of Correction shall deem advisable, and the produce of their labour shall be disposed of in like manner and for the same purpose as set for the in the second section of this By-Law.

4 That it shall and may be lawful for the Guardian of said House of Correction to contract with any municipality for the labour within the Walls of the House of Correction of any number of the persons sentenced to hard labour, at all times submitting his contracts for the sanction and approval of the Warden of the County.

5 That it shall be lawful for the Guardian to confine any prisoner to solitary confinement in any cell, who shall refuse to labour or work as required by the provisions of this By-Law and pending such solitary confinement the fare of such prisoner shall be bread and water.

6 That the Treasurer shall keep a separate account of the costs and charges incidental upon the establishment and maintaining of the House of Correction and of the receipts of the same, and shall submit annually a separate account of the same to the Municipal Council of this County.

7 That the Gaoler of the County shall discharge the duties of Guardian and shall be given the annual sum of fifty pounds in compensation for said duties

8 That it shall be the duty of said Guardian to enter upon a Book the value and proceeds of each person’s labour, and when discharged shall close the account against said person. He shall keep a report Book in which he shall make daily entries of the conduct of prisoners. He shall call in the aid of the County Surgeon upon the sickness of any prisoners confined in the House of Correction and shall at all times carry out the instructions of the Surgeon with reference to the sick or ailing.

9 That an estimate shall be given by the County Surveyor of the costs of erecting a stone wall 12 feet high in lieu of the present Board enclosure and so soon as this shall be handed in the Warden shall advertise for tenders for building the said wall, to be paid for by debentures at two and three years.

The terms of the by-law seem harsh to a twenty-first century reader, but from a recordkeeping perspective it is section 8 which is the most intriguing. How interesting it would be to read the Guardian’s log book, to gauge the success of this enterprise by seeing how much money each individual generated while they were in the House of Correction, and to read his reports on the behaviour of the prisoners. Sadly, none of these records has survived to satisfy our curiosity.

In 2015 the Community Archives lost one of its regular volunteers, Al Cleary. 2016 would have marked Al’s fifth year of volunteering in the Archives, and in memory of him we are sharing this story, which Al researched, wrote, and presented in 2012 as a ‘Story from the Archives’ for the Hastings County Historical Society.

When Belleville was incorporated as a police village in 1836, the Fire Regulations stated that all citizens from 15 to 60 were to help pull the fire equipment if so directed by any town official. Later years brought bigger and heavier equipment that was drawn to the fire by horses.

By the turn of the century the firemen were still volunteers, the horses were under contract to the City, and only the drivers or teamsters were paid. These were sometimes young boys and paid accordingly.

Jan. 1, 1916 saw the fire department made into full time permanent paid positions, with professional teamsters. Stanley Pomeroy, at 18 years of age, was hired in 1920 as a teamster because he was considered an expert with horses.

In 1921 the City of Belleville bought two new motorized fire trucks to replace the two horse drawn hose wagons, and the horses that drew them were retired. Stan Pomeroy’s main job had been to look after the horses, so he stayed at No. 2 Fire Hall to work with the remaining team that pulled the hook and ladder wagon.

Stan had special feelings for Harry, his favorite horse. Harry was a real character with a special personality, somewhat like Stan himself. If he could get down by the river after being washed, groomed and curry combed, he was very likely to get down and roll in the mud, almost on purpose. When it was time to bring him back to his stall at the fire hall, he would get all upset if he wasn’t treated to a chocolate bar or a plug of chewing tobacco. In 1926, the city bought a motorized International hook and ladder truck. Harry and his partner in the team had pulled the old ladder wagon for 22 years.

When Harry’s partner died at the fire hall, the City decided to sell old Harry to a market gardener, but the firemen refused to allow their faithful old horse to spend his last days being worked to death pulling a plow. They agreed to keep him in a stall at the fire hall, and exercise him in the yard behind.

Later Harry was pastured in Bleecker’s Woods north of the city for his well-deserved retirement, but within a few months of leaving the Fire Hall, the old horse died at the age of 23. Stan Pomeroy claimed he died of a broken heart. The Fire Department turned out as a guard of honour for old Harry at his funeral, the last of the Belleville Fire Department’s horses.

The Archives receives many donations, but few as intriguing as the colourful rolled-up newsprint poster brought in to us last year. The owner, Dr. Charles Bateman, had found the poster among his belongings, but knew nothing of its provenance. Its origins were a mystery. When carefully unrolled, it measured 1.25 metres in width by 2.5 metres in length. It proved to be in a delicate condition—fragments of the poster had disintegrated, but one thing was clear—its message was to announce Belleville’s Coronation Day Celebration in 1902. The problem was the date: Thursday, June 26. Queen Victoria had died in January of 1901. The coronation referred to had to be that of her son, King Edward VII, and his wife, Queen Alexandra, but a quick check on the internet showed that the event occurred on August 9, 1902. What was Belleville planning when it commissioned this elaborate poster? We were interested in both restoring the image of the poster, while conserving the original and researching the circumstances of its publication.

The digital restoration process presented significant technical challenges. Scanning of the poster would have provided images that were consistent in scale and orientation. However, after the passage of 113 years, the poor quality of the newsprint meant that some disintegration had occurred and posed the problem of handling such paper without further damage to it. It was necessary to photograph what remained of the poster with the result that photos available for the restoration were neither consistent in scale nor in orientation. They had to be constantly adjusted for both size and alignment.

Image restoration of the Coronation poster was done using the software program Photoshop whereby separate images can be assembled into a single composite picture. Digital photos of the various pieces of the poster were assembled into a whole, similar to completing an electronic jigsaw puzzle on a computer screen. Where pieces of the coloured portions of the poster were missing, it was possible to use Photoshop to copy one part of an image to another. For example, if a fragment was missing from a flag, it was possible to copy a similar portion from the same or even another flag. Where a suitable portion was not available, it was necessary to copy one from the internet or from a like image.

Re-creation of the original text was difficult and time consuming. The fonts used were over a century old and quite unique, and there were a significant number of them. If a letter was missing in a line of text, it was sometimes possible to copy an identical letter from the same or another line. If copying was not possible, then it was necessary to create that letter from scratch in a size and style consistent with the rest of the text in that same font. This meant copying portions of other letters where applicable or producing them by freehand drawing.

While this time-consuming digital restoration was being carried out, the task of researching the historical background of the poster was in progress.

In 1901 it had been over sixty years since a monarch of Britain and her Empire had been crowned. In December of that year, an Executive Coronation Committee was formed in England to plan Edward VII’s coronation. In Belleville, on May 13, 1902, a public meeting was held with the purpose of planning a celebration in honour of the event. An article on page 1 of The Weekly Intelligencer on May 15, entitled: “You’re All Invited and the Band’s Engaged,” gives details of the early discussions and the appointment of various committees with their chairmen to handle such matters as finance, advertising, sports and music. A limit of $1,000 was established to cover expected costs.

On page 4 of The Weekly Intelligencer that same May day, in a column entitled “Timely Topics,” the anonymous writer pens these words:

“The Coronation Day celebration is off to a good start. Tell your country cousins there’s going to be ‘doings’ in Belleville on June 26. They can all come in and have the time of their lives. … The right men have got hold of the matter, it will be a success as sure as shooting, and we’re going to help crown His Majesty King Ned in up-to-date style.”

Two weeks later, a preliminary version of our poster appeared in The Weekly Intelligencer advertising the coming event. June 26 would be “One Solid Day of Amusements & Rejoicing.”

Weekly Intelligencer, May 29, 1902

Finally, on June 5, 1902, The Weekly Intelligencer published the details of the programme planned for Coronation Day. Here we can read about the prospective activities which match very closely those listed on the poster in the Archives. The morning programme was to consist of a military and civic trades’ procession with the participation of the 15th and 49th Regiments. The afternoon would feature a balloon ascension, trick bicycle riding on a steel wire, races, Highland dancing and a lacrosse match. And finally, in the evening, a grand Kalithumpian parade would wend its way from the Market Square to the Agricultural Park where a fireworks display would take place under the personal supervision of Professor Hand.

For the uninitiated, in old Ontario, a Kalithumpian parade referred to a noisy, boisterous parade marked by discordant music and outrageous disguise and was often organized to celebrate the Queen’s birthday or Dominion Day.

The Professor Hand referred to in this article was not Professor William Hand, the founder of the Hand fireworks company, as he had died following an accident the year before, in October of 1901, but his son, Thomas William Hand.

The “Timely Topics” writer did his utmost to encourage participation: “We haven’t had a celebration of any kind now for some time, now let’s make up for lost time and have a memorable jollification on the day King Edward gets his crown. All together, now.”

But no one counted on the King getting appendicitis—just two days before his coronation, he underwent an operation to save his life. As the writer of “Timely Topics” put it, “Who can tell what a day will bring forth!” By mid-July, Edward had rallied sufficiently so that official notification could be issued to the effect that the Coronation of King Edward and Queen Alexandra would take place on Saturday, August 9th.

King Edward VII

However, the Coronation Committee of Belleville decided to give a grand fireworks display and band concert at Corby’s Driving Park on Monday night, two days after the coronation. Belleville City Council referred in their Minutes to Coronation Day as being on August 11, 1902. The reason can be found in the words written by our “Timely Topics” columnist writing in The Daily Intelligencer:

“It is pleasing to note that Belleville is going to celebrate the coronation of King Edward. The gentlemen who had arranged the celebration for June 26 were hit pretty hard, and no one would have blamed them very much if they had fought shy of things of that kind for some time to come. However, like loyal men, they thought the city should do something to mark the recovering and coronation of His Majesty.

“Of course, nobody expected anything would be done on Saturday. It was hardly in reason to ask our merchants to shut up their stores on the night of the busiest day of the week. But on Monday evening next there will be a demonstration on the Corby Driving Park, when the band will give a patriotic concert, and the grandest display of fireworks ever seen in Belleville will be shown under the personal supervision of Prof. Hand, of Hamilton, the man who makes ’em. Turn out and show your loyalty, join in the chorus of the National Anthem and let out a whoop or two for Good King Ned and the British Empire, which never took a back seat for anybody yet and doesn’t mean to.”

As can be seen from the above, the men who invested in the originally planned coronation celebration lost a good deal of money. They had the sympathy of the “Timely Topics” reporter:

“The gentlemen who engineered the proposed celebration on June 26 went behind many dollars owing to the unfortunate postponement. If there is a good attendance at the Driving Park to-night it will, though not altogether covering the loss, go a long way towards it. Turn out and enjoy yourself and give them a hand.”

Although far below the hoped-for attendance, on a somewhat chilly evening, at least 1,000 persons witnessed the display of fireworks and enjoyed the musical selections by the Independent Order of Odd Fellows Band. Belleville’s Coronation celebration was complete. “Timely Topics” writer felt “the show was a good one, and nobody got his whiskers singed, so let’s be thankful.”

The Community Archives possesses a number of City of Belleville minute books providing a written record of Belleville City Council meetings. During the research process, a number of entries in Book 3 were found pertinent to the investigation. An example from the meeting on January 23, 1901 follows.

“The citizens of Belleville Ontario join in the world wide sorrow felt for the death of the Empire’s beloved Queen, and wish in common with all Canadians to assure His Majesty King Edward of their fealty to His throne and attachment to His person.”

And finally, we come to the probable connection between our donor Dr. Bateman and the Coronation poster. Near the bottom is printed the name: Chas. Sulman, Chairman Finance Com., a man who became Mayor of Belleville from 1905 to 1908.

2016-30 Charles Sulman as Mayor of Belleville

In The Daily Intelligencer of August 7, 1902, his generosity is recognized for having presented to the City of Belleville a Union Jack to be flown on the City Hall. Plans were for the flag to be hoisted for the first time on Coronation Day and Alderman Charles Nelson Sulman was to be asked to raise the flag. Dr. Bateman is one of Mr. Sulman’s grandsons.

After a year of work, the pieces of the digital puzzle that is the Coronation Poster (and the story behind it) have been put together and the end result can be shared with the citizens of Belleville again.